Chapter 2. Performing Core Configuration and Management Tasks

In this chapter, we will cover the following recipes:

Setting up basic configuration
Understanding LDAP servers
Understanding user administration
Understanding group administration
Using Service-Now plugins
Configuring the Service-Now form
Configuring UI policies on Service-Now forms
Configuring UI actions on forms
Understanding deployments or update sets
Getting into CMDB
Setting up an SLA/OLA/underpinning contract
Setting up system rules
Understanding the system dictionary
Understanding the Service-Now tables schema
Getting into system security

Introduction

After purchasing Service-Now, the customer receives one production instance and two non-production instances, which are out-of-the-box and need to be configured as per your organization's requirements. In this chapter, you will learn to perform core configuration and management activities.

Setting up basic configuration

From Service-Now, a customer receives an out-of-the-box instance. Note that each and every organization has its own marketing and branding policies for IT applications. Basic configuration is an essential part of a Service-Now instance, in which you need to configure the entire Service-Now website (portal or frontend) for end users. From the IT point of view (where you can see incident, problem, change, self-service, and other such modules), you are allowed to change the theme of Service-Now and split the application pane at your convenience.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address provided by your company in the address bar (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com).
If you want to change the logo of service-now instance then on left hand side in the search box, type system properties and...

Understanding LDAP servers

If the LDAP server is the master source of user date, then it won't be wrong. Out of the box, Service-Now provides a built-in LDAP server, so for streamlined user access, you can integrate your company's Active Directory with Service-Now, so whoever is in the company's Active Directory is allowed to log in with their company Windows or system credentials.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address provided by your company in the address bar (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com).
Type system ldap on the left-hand side, and service now will search out the module. Now you need to click on Create New Server:
System LDAP
You have to configure it to streamline user access, as follows:
- Type of LDAP Server: Active Directory (You can give your own name)
- Server...

Understanding user administration

Users are a critical part of any organization, and application access should be smooth, so for streamlined access to applications, you can integrate Service-Now with your company's LDAP server. Out of the box, Service-Now provides an LDAP server and user administration modules for configuration.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address provided by your company in the address bar (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com).
After login, type user admin on left hand side in the search box and Service-Now will search out application for you as follows:
User administration module
Under the User Administration module, Service-Now provides many other modules, but I'll cover a few key modules in this recipe.
The Users module is the place where Service-Now holds all...

Understanding group administration

A group is a logical combination of the same skill set or common purpose. In an IT support environment, there may be many support personnel with the same skill set but different levels, such as L1, L2, and L3, where L3 are experts and L1 may have beginners.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address provided by your company in the address bar (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com).
Type your credentials in respective fields.
After login, type user administration on left hand side in the search box and Service-Now will search out application for you. Now click on Groups module as shown following:
Group module
After clicking, you will see Groups records, as shown here, where you need to select the New button:
Group Records
After clicking, you will need to configure the group, as follows...

Introduction

After purchasing Service-Now, the customer receives one production instance and two non-production instances, which are out-of-the-box and need to be configured as per your organization's requirements. In this chapter, you will learn to perform core configuration and management activities.

Setting up basic configuration

From Service-Now, a customer receives an out-of-the-box instance. Note that each and every organization has its own marketing and branding policies for IT applications. Basic configuration is an essential part of a Service-Now instance, in which you need to configure the entire Service-Now website (portal or frontend) for end users. From the IT point of view (where you can see incident, problem, change, self-service, and other such modules), you are allowed to change the theme of Service-Now and split the application pane at your convenience.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address provided by your company in the address bar (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com).
If you want to change the logo of service-now instance then on left hand side in the search box, type system properties and select...

Understanding LDAP servers

If the LDAP server is the master source of user date, then it won't be wrong. Out of the box, Service-Now provides a built-in LDAP server, so for streamlined user access, you can integrate your company's Active Directory with Service-Now, so whoever is in the company's Active Directory is allowed to log in with their company Windows or system credentials.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address provided by your company in the address bar (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com).
Type system ldap on the left-hand side, and service now will search out the module. Now you need to click on Create New Server:
System LDAP
You have to configure it to streamline user access, as follows:
- Type of LDAP Server: Active Directory (You can give your own name)
- Server name: AD Server
- Server URL: ldap://10.10...

Understanding user administration

Users are a critical part of any organization, and application access should be smooth, so for streamlined access to applications, you can integrate Service-Now with your company's LDAP server. Out of the box, Service-Now provides an LDAP server and user administration modules for configuration.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address provided by your company in the address bar (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com).
After login, type user admin on left hand side in the search box and Service-Now will search out application for you as follows:
User administration module
Under the User Administration module, Service-Now provides many other modules, but I'll cover a few key modules in this recipe.
The Users module is the place where Service-Now holds all Service-Now user accounts.
Click on...

Understanding group administration

A group is a logical combination of the same skill set or common purpose. In an IT support environment, there may be many support personnel with the same skill set but different levels, such as L1, L2, and L3, where L3 are experts and L1 may have beginners.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address provided by your company in the address bar (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com).
Type your credentials in respective fields.
After login, type user administration on left hand side in the search box and Service-Now will search out application for you. Now click on Groups module as shown following:
Group module
After clicking, you will see Groups records, as shown here, where you need to select the New button:
Group Records
After clicking, you will need to configure the group, as follows:
- Name: ServiceNow...

Using service-now plugins

Service-Now provides functionalities or features in the form of system modules. Usually, modules are activated by default, but if you want to add additional functionality, then you can consider system plugins. Plugins are like small software components that provide features and functionality as an option. Let's better understand this with an example: Data Archive is a plugin that is not activated by default. The size of the data increases in Service-Now according to the time that has passed; for example, an incident more than a year old is less significant as compared to a current incident, and old data may affect the performance of queries and reports.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address (http://{instance_name}.sservice-now.com) provided by your company in the address bar. Now, enter your...

Configuring the Service-Now form

Configuration of the Service-Now form is critical as it holds a lot of information regarding the user, issues, impact, priority and assignment groups, and so on. In this recipe, you will see how you can configure the form as per your requirement.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role. We are configuring the incident form in this recipe, but you can similarly configure any other form.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com) provided by your company in the address bar. Now, enter your credentials in respective fields.
Go to the Incident applications and click on the Create New module:
Incident module form configuration
Now, you will able to view a new Incident form.
On the Incident form header, hover the mouse cursor and right-click:
Incident form configuration
After right-clicking, a header...

Configuring UI policies on Service-Now forms

UI policies are applied to the Service-Now form to customize the behavior of the form, such as read-only access or showing or hiding a field base on a condition. Keep in mind that UI policies run after the client script does.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com) provided by your company in the address bar. Now, enter your credentials in respective fields.
Go to the Incident module and click on the Create New module.
Right-click on the header of Incident form.
Click on Configure and then on UI policies:
UI Policy button
Now you will be able to see the UI Policies page, as shown in the following diagram. Here, you need to click on the New button:
UI policies records
Now you need to configure the UI policy as follows:
- Table: Incident [incident...

Configuring UI actions on forms

A UI action is a form button used to perform actions, such as saving a record or creating a new ticket, change ticket, or problem ticket.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address (http://{instance_name}.service-now.com) provided by your company in the address bar. Now, enter your credentials in respective fields.
Go to the Incident Application and click on the Create New module.
Now, you will view an empty incident form or on existing incident form right-click on the header of the incident form through mouse and click on Configure and then on UI Actions option:
UI Action button
You will now see all the UI actions of the table. You need to click on the New button, as shown here:
New UI actions
Now, you will see the UI Actions page, which needs to be configured as follows:
- Name: Take this task ...

Understanding deployments or update sets

An update can be considered as a customized package of development items; you know by now that any Service-Now customer gets three instances or environments: One production and two non production. So, all new requirement or development work is done on the development instances, and all end-user testing is done on the testing environment. Once everyone is happy, the code is deployed in the production environment, but remember that only configuration can be captured in the update set, not data. To read more about update sets, click on http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Using_Update_Sets#gsc.tab=0.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address (https://{instance_name}.service-now.com) provided by your company in the address bar. Now, enter your credentials in respective fields.
Type...

Getting into CMDB

CMDB stands for configuration management database. Let's understand this with an example. For instance, if you purchase a laptop, then you can easily maintain or install software, but in an enterprise environment with, say, 10,000 systems in different locations, it's not an easy task to maintain (monthly patching, installing new software security, and so on) such large numbers; that's why asset management tools are on the market; they search for devices and store them in Service-Now CMDB tables.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you should have an active Service-Now instance, valid credentials, and an admin role.

How to do it...

Open any standard web browser.
Type the Service-Now instance web address (https://{instance_name}.sservice-now.com) provided by your company in the address bar. Now, enter your credentials in respective fields.
Type configuration in the search box, and Service-Now will search the module for you:
Configuration management module
Note
It is important...